This zine’s 2026 supply of truly malevolent records has not been at a standstill. But it has slowed to a trickle, that’s for sure. Instead, the doom squad took the baton from the devil’s advocates this year. And it is indeed so that the bigger names on the Blackened Beat stayed mute this year.
But that doesn’t mean that we cannot reach into the underground and grab ourselves some truly raw fare. Metal that feels like the fiends’ steely claws reaching for your immortal soul. Even when your time hasn’t come quite yet. Or at least, that is what we all like to think, right?
So, without further ado, let’s turn to Germany and their act In This Hell. For some reason, they called their piece of vile wrath Bliss. To this day, the RMR crew remains unaware of what should have generated such a benign moniker. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Blissfully unaware.
And talk about an unknown underground act. In This Hell emerged from the netherworld in 2023. And the band has been at it ever since. Bliss is their very debut record, and they roar onto the scene with fiery vengeance of the damned in their rotting hearts. And I daresay, this band doesn’t screw around. From the first note, their raw, abrasive sound descends on your eardrums like there’s no tomorrow. These guys take no prisoners and rush over the fallen’s imaginary corpses with an urgency that we have seldom heard to date. And they do this not for a measly half hour, but for a cruel and unusual 45 minutes of pain and devastation. Gotta stick it to them fledgling fans that new boyz are on the block, right?
Death and Blackened Death Metal, down-in-the-pit Black Metal, and – yes – a load of thrash intermingle in a maelstrom of grimy riffs, meaty leads, and a solo here and there. The vocalist’s rough-hewn snarls, screams, and growls, with no significant clears to lighten the mood, get brutally mangled by that thundering drum work, whose only mission on this grim piece of vinyl seems to be pounding every fan into the dust. And over long stretches, the tired ghost of Rotting Christ and a strange second coming of Anaal Nathrakh seem to haunt this desolate, lost, yet thunderous soundscape the folks over at In This Hell presented to us.
So, here you got it. May the ghost of the late master of Bathory please stand up and shower praise on this here German act for a job well done. But his its time hasn’t come yet. The RMR forgot to tell ya. In This Hell indulge in an even juicier type of Bliss. The brutal core of the album truly resides somewhere in the Extreme Metal excesses of the ’80s and ’90s. But what really saves this record’s scorched bacon are the melodics the band constantly wove into their arrangement. Don’t get me wrong, Bliss ain’t having one weak moment here. But the way the band broke up the archaic howls of early blackened fare with a bit of melody here and there just let this piece exude the musky smell of modern extremes.
Ultimately, Bliss had us hooked for the duration this filthy piece of sewage kept spewing forth. I mean, the geezers over at the RMR Review Desk got a real kick out of this juicy breakdown into Brutal Death Metal on In This Hell, the title track. Or fire up Over The Line and find that damned juicy bridge at about mid-point on a thorny bed of – crazily – some fantasy horror. But King, the last track, really took it away with its powerful mid-tempo march straight down to the fiery shores of this very special version of the underworld.
And we fully stand with the band’s statement that they delivered their vile witches’ brew with – and I quote – “…no boxes…” and “…no blinders.” The RMR crew found crude, bleak, and tempestuous Extreme Metal that – come to think of it – is an astonishing feat by a young band such as this one. Speak about hitting the ground running and delivering their alloy with boundless energy that won’t lose its bite until the very end of the runtime.
Cool record.
Record Rating: 7/10 | Label: Trollzorn Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 9 October 2026